How do you solve a problem like Bumrah? We asked Williamson and Elgar

A top batter facing Jasprit Bumrah is among the most absorbing contests there is in cricket these days. As Osman Samiuddin wrote on this site a while ago, Bumrah is a one-person species. Everything about his bowling is unique and no amount of high-end tech has helped batters solve the Bumrah riddle so far. In an attempt to dissect the powers of one of the greatest bowlers of the modern era, we asked Kane Williamson and Dean Elgar, two accomplished batters, among the rare breed to average over 40 against Bumrah across all international cricket, to help us understand the challenge.

Kane Williamson: Whenever you face Bumrah it feels like Test cricket. Because he is that good even in white-ball cricket. I recall that semi-final in Mumbai in the 2023 World Cup where he had it swinging late both ways. Gosh, it was about survival for about 40 minutes.

He obviously has the ability to move the ball both ways with incredible accuracy, and deception of pace - because he sort of quite gently arrives at the crease and then shoots these balls out with good pace. He is such a level-headed competitor as well, so you know you are always in a real fight. He's quite composed and he's going to be disciplined as well. He very rarely misses. And as a batter, that presents a huge challenge.

Elgar: He is extremely intense. You can see he hits the wicket with a different intensity and that's what separates him at the moment: his intensity of play. So it's almost like every ball is an event. There's no soft deliveries that a batter can score off.

Williamson: The one that certainly comes to mind is the World Test Championship final in 2021, precisely in the first session of the second day [day five; the first and fourth days were washed out and rain affected the second and third days too], where I was engaged in one of the most intense and fierce duels of my career, with Bumrah giving no respite. I scored seven runs in the whole session, including a boundary late in that period. I still find it unbelievable.

He probably went at one-and-a-half runs an over or something like that. And that was through asking questions all day and getting some assistance out of the surface. I would've loved to have scored quicker, but it didn't feel like that was an option! I played and missed, played and missed, sort of managed to keep a few out and then it was trusting that we'd get something somewhere at some stage (chuckles), and Bumrah and Co. didn't give us much.

You see him with the Dukes in his hand and that is an added challenge because he is going to get so much more assistance with that, versus facing him in New Zealand against the Kookaburra. And so yeah, that session in particular, and that whole game, where it did provide some assistance to fast bowlers. If there's absolutely anything, whether it's swing or even some sort of seam movement off the surface, someone like Jasprit's going to exploit that.

Elgar: The Johannesburg Test in 2018, which was his debut series. The pitch at Wanderers was not at all easy for batters. Jass hit me everywhere, including on the helmet after the ball kicked up suddenly from short of a good length and caused some trouble for me.

The pitch was very favourable to bowlers - very quick, uneven bounce, a lot of balls were rising off lengths, which was quite unusual. The Test was very close to potentially being called off. Jass, who we had never seen before, managed to get a lot out of that pitch with his unique action and fierce pace. It was among the best spells of fast bowling I had ever faced. And I can tell you, having faced him over two more series - in 2021-22 and 2023-24 - in South Africa, the challenge only became more severe.

Williamson: His mode of attack is no different to any good fast bowler: attacking the top of the stumps and then trying to move the ball and either bringing in the edge or lbw or bowled. As a batter, I'm telling myself: you know you are going to get some good balls. So you are trying to limit the damage with a strong defensive position and then taking any opportunity you can to get off strike or put away a ball where he might have missed. But having said that, you are not really relying on [him missing] because it doesn't happen all that often, but you still need to be in that frame of mind [to capitalise when the chance comes].

That's what the best [bowlers] in the world are able to do: they are so relentless in how they operate that you are always trying to hold firm with your plan as long as you can.

Elgar: I have always had this theory about facing quality, really, really high-end seam bowlers or fast bowlers: if you defend them well and if you leave them well, that's quite a high percentage of the battle done. And then they'll give you some scoring options because they get frustrated [at] not penetrating your defence, and then you can maybe have a few more options of scoring. But leading up to that, you really need to have your defence on point [and] leave very well against high-quality fast bowlers - despite knowing that they don't really leave your stumps.

That was my theory of playing Jass: defend like your life depends on it, leave well, and obviously, if he bowls in your areas to potentially just get a single, do it. But [he was] accurate, so accurate at high intensity, high pace. So you need to be so locked in, you need to focus on what you need to do irrespective of what the ball does off the surface.

He's also very accurate. I can't remember him bowling, like, a cut-shot ball. A lot of the times that would be my scoring option. If the ball's swinging back in, that's something that I'll always look to play, [mixed in] with a lot of defence or even leaving it well, but you need to be really on point with that. Yeah, he caused a lot of headaches.

Williamson: I certainly worked hard at trusting my defence, but in this game you know that you can get good deliveries where you might be in your best position and it's still not quite good enough. And Bumrah probably bowls more of those balls than anybody else. So you are still trusting it [defence] but you are also accepting the fact that if you are in your best position and it's not good enough, then you have to walk off and so be it.

Williamson: Across formats he's hands down the best bowler in the world. Certainly in the white-ball format, with his slower ball, which is one of the best in the world, and his ability to bowl yorkers, which has proven to be such a difficult thing [to counter]. He's amazing at that, not to mention, when he gets a new ball in his hand, which we see in Test cricket all the time. So the way he can operate in all facets. He is so versatile and there's that deception: he's still bowling 140-plus and he basically jogs to the crease. There's so many elements to what he does that makes it quite special, unique and world-class.

Elgar: Jass is two different bowlers [depending on whether he is] bowling from over or round the wicket. I always felt it was a lot easier when he is bowling over the wicket because all you are looking to do is play the ball that's swinging back at you, and if the ball is going away from you, you look to leave that or defend it as best as possible. And when he switches to around the wicket, he's got that natural ability to bring the ball back in to you but also the away-swinging ball for the left-hander, so you feel like you need to play at a lot of balls that you shouldn't be really playing at.

Elgar: Reading the seam from the bowler's hand is a traditional way to understand what he is up to, but with Jass the difference is, he has these very, very subtle wrist positions. And also, his arm speed is so quick as well. That's how he generates his intensity [when he delivers] the ball. So you really have to focus so much harder on his hand, but you can see the seam when it's coming down.

He has such amazing wrists. So you need to really watch the ball quite hard [in addition to him having an] unusual action. You need to really focus hard on or how the seam is coming out: if the seam's pointing towards the slips, I know the ball's going to swing away and I have got to really leave it well and defend well and not over-attack. If the seam is pointed towards the stumps, then I know I need to be even more compact and play that ball down the ground.

Williamson: It is not easy to read Bumrah's hand. You watch as closely as you can, but really you are trying to identify the biggest threats [deliveries] so you are playing for the ones that bring in the most modes of dismissal. But it is very, very difficult with the slower ball to read his hand, because his arm speed stays the same and he gets a lot of drop.

The way he lets the ball go in front of himself, and his action as well, it kind of means it's probably a little bit closer to the batter [than with other bowlers], therefore you have probably got a little bit less time, and he can slightly adjust his wrist and get it swinging both ways. It sort of really speeds up the process. So with less time, with the ball that's moving sideways, that's a really good recipe and a great asset to have in your artillery [as a bowler].

The way he gets shape and swing from letting the ball go in front of himself, it does mean that the ball moves late. In some ways it's like when you face a [mystery] spinner and you struggle to pick the [variations]. So you are sort of trying to create a game plan that allows for that versus seeing the big inswinger or seeing the big outswinger and being able to adjust because you pick up all those cues. So I do think that's a massive strength of his that separates what he can do from other bowlers.

Williamson: I always have seen him as more of a skiddy bowler. It has to skid, doesn't it, when it's coming from that height, at that pace? But it's heavy. When someone bowls a heavy ball, they are getting something out of the surface and it's bouncing on you, which is different to when they are fast through the air but it may not feel heavy. You might play a defensive shot, but if the ball is heavy and it's bouncing in terms of coming at you off the pitch, then you can get defensive nicks where if a player has any laziness in his position - then those are the margins these top bowlers will expose.

Elgar: I played Jass like a hit-the-deck-bowler. But generally a hit-the-deck bowler is not a swing bowler, he is more a nip bowler. Jass is hit-the-deck with swing. With the newer ball, I found he would be a touch fuller, allow the ball to do more in the air, and then when the ball got older, he would pull his length back and really hit the deck harder and try and see if there's any lateral movement in the wicket.

Elgar: A lot of times you play the name, which is one of the battles a batter has to fight: don't play the name, play the ball. So in that sense, you always know that he is a massive risk. He is a wicket-taker. He's a big threat in the bowling attack. So you almost have to fight that before you go out. When you get through that and you're able to put the player aside and just focus on what he has to deliver and you play the ball, that's already quite a big victory. That battle was a constant first hurdle.

But I'll never deny it and say, no, he didn't get in my head. That would be a lie. But in saying that, I would think that I also got into his head. [When] you can fight the demons that are in your mind, that's also really another battle that can work in your favour. In that 2023-24 series we both had some good duels, and that is a period where I batted at my most fluent. I was telling myself: everything's coming to an end [Elgar retired at the end of that series], so it's almost like the shackles were released and I was actually able to show people that I'm actually quite a fluent player when my mind is totally, totally clear. And that's probably the one time that I thought I had the upper hand against Jass. But yeah, he's just a massive challenge. There's just no release from him, let's put it that way. There's no easy way out.